British crew describes psychological pressure

MEET THE PRESS: Six of the fifteen British military personnel freed by Iranian authorities Thursday, are seen today during a news conference at the Royal Marines Barracks in southwest England. From left to right, Royal Marine Joe Tindell, 21, Arthur Batchelor, 20, Royal Marine Captain Chris Air, 25, Lieutenant Felix Carman, Royal Marine Adam Sperry, 22, and Simon Massey. LEFTERIS PITARAKIS, ASSOCIATED PRESS

ROYAL MARINE BASE CHIVENOR, England Lined up against a dank stone wall, the captured British naval team steeled themselves for the end as masked guards dressed in black cocked their weapons behind their heads.

“Someone said, I quote: 'Lads, lads, I think we're going to get executed',” Royal Marine Joe Tindell said Friday, recounting events on the second night of what turned into a 13-day ordeal in Iranian custody.

The 21-year-old said the prisoners had believed they were being taken to the British Embassy in Tehran to be released, but were instead herded into a cell.

“We had a blindfold and plastic cuffs, hands behind our backs, heads against the wall. ... There were weapons cocking,” Tindell told British Broadcasting Corp. radio.

One shaken sailor became sick. In his own fright, Tindell mistook the sound from his crew mate. “As far as I was concerned he had just had his throat cut,” Tindell said.

That was just one of the charges leveled at Iran by the newly free sailors and marines. They said they had been blindfolded, isolated in cold stone cells and tricked with the fake execution while being coerced into falsely saying they entered Iranian waters.

They said there was no doubt the 15 crew members were in Iraq's territorial waters when they were seized by heavily armed boats of Iran's Revolutionary Guard. They also said their jailers had singled out the only woman among the captives for use in propaganda.

Iran, which has been celebrating the incident as a victory, quickly rejected the charges, dismissing a news conference held by six of the freed personnel as “propaganda” and “a show.” Iranian state TV accused British leaders of “dictating” the crew's statements.

Appearing a day after being flown home to reunions with their families, the eight sailors and seven marines reported undergoing constant psychological pressure and being threatened with seven years in prison if they did not say they intruded into Iranian waters.

“At some points I did have fears that we would not survive,” Operator Maintainer Arthur Batchelor, 20, the youngest sailor among the captives, told The Associated Press in an interview.

Speaking at the news conference with five colleagues, the boat team's commander, Royal Navy Lt. Felix Carman, said the prisoners were harshly interrogated during 13 days in custody and slept in stone cells on piles of blankets.

“All of us were kept in isolation. We were interrogated most nights and presented with two options: If we admitted that we'd strayed, we'd be on a plane to (Britain) pretty soon. If we didn't, we faced up to seven years in prison,” he said.

Carman, who was one of the captives who appeared in Iranian videos seeming to admit being in Iran's waters, disavowed his earlier comment.

“Let me make this clear -- irrespective of what was said in the past -- when we were detained by the Iranian Revolutionary Guard we were inside internationally recognized Iraqi territorial waters,” he said.

Royal Marine Capt. Chris Air said the crew, operating in two inflatable boats in the Persian Gulf on March 23 checking vessels for smuggled goods, was confronted by two Revolutionary Guard boats.

“They rammed our boats and trained their heavy machine guns, RPGs and weapons on us. Another six boats were closing in on us,” Air said.

He said the team quickly decided that a gunbattle would risk a major escalation of tensions with Iran and that they were too lightly armed to resist anyway.

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